PRIORITY AREA 2 ORGANIZED A DISCUSSION ON REGIONAL COOPERATION WITH OTHER REGIONAL AND MACRO-REGIONAL INITIATIVES IN THE FIELD OF SUSTAINABLE USE OF LOCAL RESOURCES
The panel discussion “Putting synergies into practice regional initiatives together for sustainable use of local resources” was held on 29th October 2015 within the framework of the 4th Annual Forum of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region in Ulm. The aim of the panel was to share lessons learnt from already established cooperation focusing on sustainable use of local resources in the field of energy and environment and to take advantage of various experiences and approaches to horizontal cooperation among different regional/macro-regional initiatives.
The opening remarks were delivered by Mr Pál Ságvári, the Hungarian Ambassador-at-large for energy security and the Hungarian Priority Area 2 coordinator. He shortly presented the up-to-date cooperation of Priority Area 2 with other regional stakeholder and stressed the importance of mutual collaboration and knowledge sharing among present stakeholders. The first presentation by Mr Harald Egerer showed the experience of the Carpathian Convention with multi-level and multi-policy stakeholders. He pointed out the need to establish a system of partnership as a key element for successful cooperation which can overcome the challenge of specific needs of each organization. Another very important stakeholder taking part in the panel was the Danube region is the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River, which has been represented by Mr Ivan Závadský, the Executive Director, and Mr Peter Kalaš from the upcoming Czech presidency. Mr Závadský highlighted the mutual need of regional organizations and the EUSDR for cooperation, which leads not only to mutual support of joint goals, but also helps with project development. He also stressed that macro-regional strategies should play an important role in showing added value of macroregional project in the national frameworks. Mr Kalaš added that the challenges of the region require joint actions of the relevant stakeholders as well as high quality projects. Ms Egija Augule subsequently shared Latvian experiences with Priority Area Energy of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region and the EUSBSR´s experience with engaging multi-level stakeholders and managing overlapping initiatives within the regions. Mrs Edina Csányi from the European Investment Bank introduced a new European Investment Advisory Hub, a tool for project development consultations, which can help not only national administrations, but also cooperation of various organizations in the Danube region to help to develop a joint project.
Please find the presentations below:
Putting_synergies_into_practice_Carpathian_Convention
Putting_synergies_into_practice_EIB
